The library staff had a holiday breakfast! The smell of sausage cooking brought in other college staff to enjoy the food. Here are some of the recipes and images from the breakfast:
Overnight French Toast
4 eggs (egg substitute OK)
2/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 loaf Vienna or Italian bread, cut into (1-inch-thick) slices
Beat all ingredients except bread with a wire whisk. Place bread in a single layer in casserole dish. Pour egg mixture over bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Turn once. Preheat oven to 400-425 F. Melt 1/3 cup margarine and pour evenly in jelly-roll pan. Arrange bread slices in pan. Bake until golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve with butter and syrup. Note: Sprinkle with 1/2 cup chopped nuts, if desired.

Breakfast Casserole Recipe
Yield: 12-15 servings (Recipe can be cut in half for a smaller crowd)
2 tablespoons butter
24 large eggs
1/4 cup half-and-half (optional)
1 pound bulk suasage, cooked, drained and crumbled
1 cup chopped cooked ham (optional)
1 cup sour cream
1 cup Cheddar cheese, shredded
Whisk eggs with half-and-half (if used) until thoroughly mixed.
Melt butter in large (nonstick) pan. Add eggs to skillet. Cook the scrambled eggs slowly so that they do not overcook. They should be soft.
Use butter or non-stick spray to "grease" a 9-inch x 13-inch casserole pan.
Place the scrambled eggs in the prepared pan. Add the sausage, sour cream, ham (if used). Gently toss the ingredients to mix them together.
Sprinkle shredded cheese on top.
Cover and refrigerate the pan until ready to heat and serve - up to 24 hours or so.Heat the casserole in a 350 degree F. oven for 20 minutes until heated through and cheese has melted.

Good gravy!
Ingredients:
sausage (bacon will work equally well)
flour
salt
pepper
milk

Fry sausage in a nonstick skillet (the traditional cast iron skillet gives a bit better flavor, but requires more skill as well!).
Remove and drain sausage, while keeping the grease in the skillet.
To the hot grease, add flour -- usually start with a tablespoon and keep adding a bit until you have a moderately thick mixture. It's important to keep the skillet hot while adding flour so that the flour and grease will mix well. Stir constantly.
Add milk -- start with a pint or so, and stir constantly while keeping the mixture hot. Additional milk may be added at any time to thin the mixture.
Once the gravy begins to thicken, add salt and pepper to taste.
An additional option is to crumble some sausage and add to the gravy.

The ingredients for this gravy will vary according to the amount of grease available and the desired thickness of the gravy. If you add "too much" milk and the gravy is too thin, just keep cooking it and it will thicken.

Slather some on a hot biscuit and enjoy!

Happy Holidays from the Augusta R. Kolwyck Library!


Here are a few recipes for your holidays:

Pineapple-Cheese Ball
This cheese ball can be made a few days ahead and is actually a little better if the flavors are allowed to mingle a while.
2 blocks of softened cream cheese (light works fine)
8 oz. crushed pineapple, very well drained
1/4 cup finely grated onion
1/4 cup finely chopped green or red bell pepper
1 generous tsp. Lawry's seasoning
Chopped pecans.

Thoroughly combine first 5 ingredients and shape into a ball. Cover and refrigerate until the mixture is firm again--a couple of hours. Roll in chopped pecans (about 1 cup). Wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve with crackers.



Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes
1 box Duncan Hines Spice Cake Mix
1 15oz can mashed unsweetened pumpkin
1/2 cup egg substitute

Mix ingredients on low speed until well blended, then on medium speed for 2 minutes. Put into 24 cupcake cups. Bake 18 minutes in preheated 350 degree oven.

Glaze
1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
2 T orange juice (or enough to make a glaze)
1/4 t (or more) orange zest

Mix all with a whisk until well blended. Spread on cupcakes.

Hot, Spiced Apple Juice
64 oz apple juice, no sugar added
1 orange
whole cloves
3 cinnamon sticks

Put juice in crockpot. Slice orange and stud it with cloves. Put orange slices and cinnamon sticks in crockpot. Heat it up and serve.

Infamous Bean Dip (has also been called Texas Caviar):
1-2 8 oz. cans black beans
drained Salsa (any variety)
Cheese (any variety)

Take beans - drain off juice unless you want your dip to be a thinner consistency. Put in saucepan and mash with fork or potato masher. Add cheese and salsa to taste. Warm over medium to medium-high heat. Keep stirring until all is blended and cheese is melted (~5 minutes). Serve room temperature or warm. It gets rather stiff when cold.

The Goober Cake (not sure why it's called that)
1 18 1/2 oz. yellow cake mix
1 4 1/4 oz. box instant chocolate pudding (I use the 5 oz. size)
4 eggs
3/4 c. oil
1 cup sour cream
1 12-oz. bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Mix first 5 ingredients with mixer - stir in chocolate chips. Pour into well-greased, floured 10-inch tube pan (Bundt pan or Springform pan also works) and bake at 325 for 50-60 minutes. Straw test does not work on this cake. Cool 20 minutes and turn out - wonderful served by itself or with ice cream:)

THE "BIG EASY"
1 5oz. Bottle Pickapeppa Sauce
1 8oz. Block Cream Cheese
1 Box Crackers or Wafers of Choice

Place opened block of cream cheese on serving dish. Pour bottle of Pickapeppa Sauce over block of cream cheese. Spread on crackers.

Wendy's Chili Recipe
Serving Size : 12
Preparation Time: 10min.
2 pounds Ground beef
1 Can tomato sauce -- (29 ounces)
1 Can kidney beans w/liquid -- (29 ounces)
1 Can pinto beans w/liquid -- (29 ounces)
1 medium Onion -- diced
2 Green chili -- diced
1 Rib celery -- diced
3 medium Tomatoes -- chopped
2 teaspoons Cumin powder
3 tablespoons Chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons Black pepper
2 teaspoons Salt
2 cups Water

Brown the beef and drain the fat off. Crumble the cooked beef into pea size pieces. Combine the beef plus the remaining ingredients in a large pot and bring to a simmer over low heat. Cook stirring every 15 minutes for 2-3 hours. Note: You can substitute the 3 medium tomatoes and 2 green chilies with 2 15oz cans of diced tomatoes with green chilies.


DDH

Group Study in the Library!

The Library has created some spaces for our students/faculty/staff to collaborate on projects. There are two tables located next to the windows in the back of the library that have 4 chairs, a computer with two monitors, a keyboard, and a mouse.

The idea is that a minimum of 4 people can sit at a table and be able to use the keyboard and mouse while viewing the same thing on each monitor. We hope that students will be able to work on class presentations effectively in these spaces.

We encourage you to bring some type of medium on which to save your work. USB Flash Drives (available in the bookstore) are preferable but you can burn CDs and use floppy disks if you wish. Web-based email is supported if you would like to email saved files to yourself.

The computers have the Microsoft Office Suite including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. Please try this and tell us how it works. Also, if you have software that you are required to use that we don’t have, please suggest that we consider making it available using either the comment feature on this blog or the questions form.

DDH